** 3 page review / 2320 words ** ** C98MAIN1.GIF overlapping ** C98MAIN2.GIF or just use the colour one Ed McGlone gets his hands on Calamus SL98, one of the most eagerly awaited upgrades to one of the Atari platform's oldest professional quality software packages... Back in the eighties, Calamus was released for the Atari ST and revolutionised Desktop Publishing on our favourite platform. Up until that time, desktop publishing software had used bitmapped fonts for the text shown on screen. Suddenly, Calamus burst onto the scene with its use of vector font technology and DTP would never be the same again. Calamus was the first true WYSIWYG desktop publisher on any platform. It was the fastest printing package under most circumstances and, indeed, when combined with the Atari SLM804 Laser Printer, was unbeatable with a "click to print" time of about six seconds! I remember being given the latest version of (at that time) Aldus Pagemaker to do a bit of desktop publishing on at work and just about tearing my hair out with frustration at that program's lack of capabilities compared to my beloved Calamus at home. And that has been Calamus' trump card over the years. It has been said on many occasions Calamus has a steep learning curve and a quirky interface - which is true, but once you're hooked on Calamus, nothing else will do! That is why many Calamus 1.09 users upgraded to Calamus SL when the full colour version was released and remain loyal Calamus users to this day. What's new? So, what does the new Calamus SL98 have to offer? Well, the answer is more of everything. New features, smoother interface, more flexibility, better stability and increased functionality. Here's just a few of the new features: ** UL ** * Text scaling * New file selector * Totally revamped and improved Print dialog * Built-in masking * New Guideline module * New Text Ruler dialog * Intuitive font handling * Improved Multitasking operation ** /UL ** Buttons, Bars and Panels To start with the interface, when you open up Calamus SL98, it looks very familiar but some subtle improvements begin to intrude on your consciousness. ** C98_TREE.GIF here ** caption ** A typical Calamus command tree. These are normally displayed one at a time by selecting between the top row of icons ** /caption ** Calamus has become more modular in nature. some commands which were previously located in the left hand command panels have moved up to the external modules toolbar. This toolbar can now be resized and re-positioned to accommodate more external modules and the basic zoom and view toolbar can also be moved to allow for that. If the external modules toolbar is kept too small to show all of the modules available, it displays scroll arrows like before. This is a boon particularly for users of large screens with enough space to expand their toolbar displays. On my usual 800x600 display, there is room across the top for about 30 external module buttons - far more than I think anyone would ever need. The links between modules is now much smoother. For example, if you select Special Options for a frame type which has no commands under that heading, a dialog box pops up to offer you the chance to go straight in to the module which deals with that frame type. Also, if you click on a module, for example, Vector Graphics, without having first selected a frame of that type, the Frames Module is switched to that frame type and you can immediately draw one onto the page. Little features like this make the latest version easier to use but without losing the Calamus feel. This move to separate modules however sometimes serves to confuse issues rather than make things easier. There is a new Guidelines module for example which gives excellent control over the placement and visibility of grids, guidelines, row and column guides, printable areas and the notorious Calamus Magnetic Frames feature. The only trouble is that to activate any of these guides for snapping frames to, you have to go back to the frames module - that function has not been taken in to the Guidelines Module. This reorganisation of familiar features can be frustrating for the seasoned Calamus user but to be honest is probably of less importance to newcomers to the software who will simply learn it that way. Looking at the frame types available, we come across the first of the newly included modules which used to be sold separately - Mask Frames. These work like this. Choose and select two frames of any types. Click on the Mask Icon and the back frame is masked by the front frame. For example if your back frame is a picture and your front frame is a frame of black text, the end result will be a frame of text filled with the picture - very neat! All of the other old favourites are there -Text, Vector and Raster Graphics, Line Frames, Raster Areas, Groups and so on and in most cases the available commands have been refined. Raster Graphic frames are now freely convertible between TrueColor, palette based images, greyscale or monochrome in the frame special functions panel and their control lines or histograms can be edited. Stylish Text Much of the time spent in a desktop publishing package like Calamus is gobbled up laying out textual elements. Calamus has always excelled at this with comprehensive control over every aspect of the text's appearance. Most of these functions have been in Calamus since the very first release but for anyone unfamiliar with Calamus here's a brief description of the tools which, from left to right, can: ** C98_TEXT.GIF here ** caption ** The Textstyle Module Command Tree ** /caption ** ** UL ** * Choose the font. Fonts can be freely loaded and unloaded from memory. There are thousands of Calamus fonts available commercially and in the Public domain and if you're still left wanting more you can use programs like Fonty, available from the FAST club, to convert TrueType and Postscript Type one fonts for use in Calamus. * Set the font size freely from small to large with control over the sizing method. * Set the text effects from Normal, Underlined, Outlined, Shadowed, Sub/Superscript, Compressed or Skewed. Compression factors and Skew angles can also be freely set. * Set the text colour, word and character spacings. * Set the colour, thickness, overhang and distance for underlining. * Set the colour and thickness for outlining. * Set the colour and distances for text shadows. * Define and choose Text Style Lists. * All of this adds up to some of the most comprehensive text style control tools available anywhere. One especially useful new feature which makes creating banner headlines and display text easy is the ability to re-size text simply by stretching the containing frame. This scales the text independently in the x and y directions so you can make it fatter or shorter this way as well. Text sized in this way does has to be unsized for further editing but the stretch settings are retained so that when you are finished, a single mouse click restores the stretch. As ever in Calamus, paragraph styles are controlled using Text Rulers with options to set the line and paragraph spacing, justification, left and right margins, indenting etc and there is no limit on the number of text rulers in a document or even within one frame. Ruler editing can be performed graphically using the mouse or textually in dialog boxes. Calamus has always been good with long documents and all the tools are there to help you knock your work into shape with section and chapter numbering, indexing and footnote generation. Text frames can now have a background colour or texture. This can be an image or maybe a nice linear or radial gradient produced using the newly included Blend module. Backgrounds can be applied to single text frames or to entire chains with three or four mouse clicks. ** C98_BLND.GIF here ** caption ** Defining colours for use in the Blend Module ** /caption ** Basic picture editing can be carried out from inside Calamus. The brush module allows single pixel and brush based editing for manually touching up images and the new PhotoTouch filter module from MGI allows whole image effects to be added including Sharpen, Effect, a programmable generic filter and an excellent Emboss filter. In addition, Histograms or Colour Control Lines can be used to adjust brightness, contrast and the colour balance of images. ** C98_EMBS.GIF here ** caption ** Adding an Emboss Effect using the Phototouch module ** /caption ** Output Printing has received a fair bit of attention in Calamus since the last release. It is still as fast as ever but excellent results are now easier to achieve especially with colour inkjet printers. ** C98_PRNT.GIF here ** caption ** The updated Print Dialog ** /caption ** Most of the printer drivers have been updated and support is now offered for HP laser and deskjet printers at up to 600 dpi resolution in monochrome. In addition, the HP colour drivers come with variable pre-sets for depletion and shingling settings to compensate for the variations in the way that the different coloured dots of ink from the printer mix and combine on different types of paper. Pre-sets are supplied for normal paper, transparencies and premium quality white glossy paper. ** C98_PAPR.GIF here ** caption ** Different types of paper can be taken into account for certain printers ** /caption ** Calamus has always insisted printed output has equal horizontal and vertical resolutions so the slightly unusual 600x300 resolution offered by some recent HP colour deskjets is not supported. On the other hand, colour Epson Stylus support goes right up to 720 dpi and the results from both laser and inkjet printer can be quite stunning. As before Calamus can print whole documents, page ranges, selected tiles, left pages only, right pages only, ascending or descending order, mirrored, inverted, scaled and on and on. Calamus offers control over print quality which remains second to none in the field of desktop publishing. Better multitasking This release is much more stable running under MagiC although all the attempts to make it more multitasking friendly still haven't stopped it trying to hog all available memory when launched! On the other hand, Calamus' memory management seems to have improved - a large document which I could previously only work on in monochrome mode running Single TOS now loads and runs smoothly in 256 colours under MagiC. Overall Calamus SL98 proved to be reliable and stable in operation and I only suffered one crash during the entire review process despite trying out all sorts of silly things whilst running screen grabbers and text editors at the same time. Niggles It's not perfect of course and these are a few things which could be improved. I had been looking forward to seeing the new 3D look when running in 16 colour resolutions or higher but was disappointed to find only dialogs have been given the 3D treatment. I know it's purely cosmetic but it would have been more consistent if all the command panels included 3D colour icons - maybe in a future release. When running Calamus on the Falcon in 256 colour mode, you still have to run a separate screen driver program first. A minor point certainly but I still forget to do it. The standard text editor for Calamus is still an unchanged PKS Write. I know replacement editors like my namesake Eddie can be purchased but surely it's time PKS Write was updated. Dialog fields seem to have lost the ability to clear them by hitting the [Esc] key. This has been a standard GEM convention for years now and I am puzzled why Calamus has abandoned this method. To clear a field now you have to hold the [Backspace] key down until all the characters have been deleted - definitely a backward step. The new features are covered in a tiny addendum to the original Calamus SL manual. This barely covers the basics and the does need properly documenting. Conclusions An article about an application which is as advanced and mature as Calamus can only ever hope to scratch the surface - the sheer number of features and commands available means the reviewer has to "cherry pick" which points to cover. Hopefully I've given you a flavour of what Calamus is like to work with. As you can probably tell, I like it a lot. Calamus 98 is not "desktop publishing for idiots" in the way Microsoft Publisher and some other DTP applications have evolved to appeal to a mass audience. However Calamus 98 is a comprehensive, professional and powerful desktop publishing application which will repay the time you spend using it with incredible flexibility and superb results - you will never outgrow Calamus. The future Contrary to all the rumours which have been circulating since 1994, Calamus is still being developed both for PC and for the Atari platform. In the UK Calamus 98 is supported by Image Applications, and at its new price point offers superb value for money. ** boxout ** WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get This is claimed by all desktop publishing software but as far as I know, Calamus is still the only truly WYSIWYG desktop publisher on the market. This is because it has a special zoom function which shows you your document at a Printer 1:1 ratio - that is, one pixel on screen exactly represents one printer dot on the paper. You can't get more WYSYWYG than that! ** /boxout ** ** product boxout ** Calamus 98 Publisher MGI Software Corporation UK Distribution IMAGE Applications Unit 3 Wellesley House, Walmer Castle Road, Deal, Kent, CT14 7NG, UK. Tel: 01304-369364 Fax: 01304-372141 Email: caluser@cix.co.uk http://www.cix.co.uk/~ips/Calamus.html Cost Full Package: œ199.00 Competitive upgrade from DA's Layout, Papyrus or Timeworks Publisher: œ159 Upgrade from Calamus v1.09: œ159 Requires Any Atari or TOS compatible machine running 600x400 (ST-high) resolution or higher, software supplied on HD floppy disks. Pros Powerful, precise, flexible Cons Steep learning curve, poor addendum manual, only partial interface revamp - looks like a work in progress. 90% ** /product boxout ** ** Images / Captions ** C98_PAGE.GIF here ** caption ** Organising a document using the Pagetool Module ** /caption **